394 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



things were canned. Fifty quarts of things I canned were from 

 my garden. At the County Fair there was a boys' and girls' 

 division. I entered my vegetables there and took $3.50 in prizes. 

 This year I was often ready to give up my work, but I stuck 

 and am in it for another year. The club members are intending 

 to make it a bigger success next year; we will try to get 

 vegetables to the state fair. This year I did not become a million- 

 aire from my garden. I did not break any records. But I did 

 make more money than if I had not entered the contest, and I did 

 gain a lot of experience in growing and marketing vegetables. 

 I am going to make a bigger success next year. 



Field Mice. 



BY 0. W. MOORE, SPRING VALLEY (SOUTHERN MINNESOTA HORTICULTURAL 



SOCIETY) . 



In the spring of 1915 Prof. Hendricks, of the Agricultural 

 Department of the Spring Valley School, came to me and asked 

 me to go into the country with him to inspect an apple orchard. 

 On arriving at the orchard I found one of the worst cases of 

 girdling that I have ever met in all of my horticultural experi- 

 ence. The orchard stood on a stony ridge, the north end of the 

 ridge sloping down to nearly level land of a few acres. This part 

 of the orchard being rich land had put up a heavy growth of blue 

 grass during the summer of 1914 which had not been mowed. 

 This made an ideal home for mice during the winter. The trees 

 were from two to three inches in diameter and were girdled from 

 two to twelve inches in length — and the mice did not skip a tree. 

 I did not count them, but I should judge that there were some 

 three or four hundred of those trees. Mr. Hendricks asked me if 

 I could suggest a remedy to save those trees. I said to him that 

 if I had known of the trouble two or three weeks sooner that they 

 could have been bridged, but it is too late now as you can see that 

 the trees are showing green leaves and blossom buds and there 

 were no dormant scions to work with. I then said to him that 

 there is one remedy left. It is a remedy that has worked for me 

 and I do not know why it will not work here. If the owner of 

 these trees will go and buy six inch and eight inch lumber and saw 

 it into lengths that will cover the wounds of these trees and nail 

 them together and put these boxes on the trees so that the trees 

 will stand in the center of these boxes and then fill these boxes 

 with fine dirt and wet the dirt good, a large portion of these trees 

 can be saved. The owner of the trees followed my advice and 

 Mr. Hendricks reported to me last fall that ninety per cent, of 

 these trees were doing well. Those boxes are not only a present 

 help, but they are a preventive against mice in and for the future. 



